September 24, 2010 - 5:24pm -- Anonymous Comrade (not verified)

Artists, curators, theorists, and “correspondents” will come together during the workshops which are part of the Potosí Principle exhibition to discuss and elaborate the following topics: How can we describe colonial as well as contemporary global contexts with Marx’s principle of “primitive accumulation”? How and where is cultural hegemony being produced? Which artistic interventions or practices and which dissenting voices can undermine the standards of a “universal museum” within an internationalised world?

Workshop Day 1 • Friday, October 8

“There is a primitive accumulation that is merely so called”

Neither the conception and formation of modern European society nor its economic system can be fully understood without considering its colonial past and its crimes. This demanding conditionality has persisted to the present day and continues to do so on a global scale. The Marxist concept of primordial accumulation serves this workshop day as a research tool for looking at current and historical conditions, using three concrete case studies: “strawberries, soybeans, cocaine.”

12:00 – 14:00 h “So-called Primitive Accumulation”

Re-reading of the 24th chapter of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital, “Primitive Accumulation”

Moderation: Thomas Kuczynski

14:00 – 15:00 h Break

15:00 -18:00 h “Strawberries, Soy, Cocaine”

Workshop I venue: K1, HKW

- “The strawberry industry in Huelva,” Isaías Grinolo

- “The soy-republic,” Eduardo Molinari

Moderation: Max Jorge Hinderer

16:30 – 17:00 h Break

17:00 – 18:00 h: “The Long Memory of Cocaine”

John Barker and Max Jorge Hinderer

18:00 – 19:00 h Break

19:00 – 22:00 h “A primitive accumulation that is merely so called”

Lectures and discussions I venue: Theatersaal I Simultaneous translation (english-spanish)

From Potosi’s perspective, the history, persistence and presence of primitive accumulation is predicated on a globalized economy. Also, attributions of territory or identity can be understood from the perspective of a political-economic and / or feminist approach as a ramification of this world system. Silvia Federici and Peter Linebaugh consider this transatlantic colonial history and its “blind spots”. Three inputs connect the Key Notes to concrete positions in the exhibition.

- Short input: “Triumph of the female house workers: About a campaign of the group ‘Territorio Doméstico’ in Madrid,” Konstanze Schmitt

- Short input: “Punitive Accumulation” CVA/ TIPPA

- Keynote: “A world upside down: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic,” Peter Linebaugh

- Discussion

Moderation: John Barker, Max Jorge Hinderer

22-23.30 h Late Night Special venue: Café Global

Matthijs de Bruijne recorded the dreams of workers and migrants during his trips to China in 2008 / 2009. He discovered Migrant Workers Home and invited the founders to participate in Principi Potosí. Sun Heng is a traveling musician and founding director of the Cultural and Art Museum of Migrant Workers in Picun/ Beijing. In his songs, he grapples with the reality and dreams of the new Chinese working class. The texts will be projected in English translation.

- Matthijs de Bruijne about “1000 dreams.org”

Workshop Day 2

Saturday, 9.10.2010

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land

The enormous dynamic of primitive accumulation in the 16th century triggered a mass production of images that were initially shipped to the colonies as an impetus for their own image production. The images make clear that cultural hegemony is not a symbolic value but a form of violence. Though there is no linear connection or continuity between these image worlds and the creation of value in today’s globalized world, we do believe there are parallels between the function of colonial painting and the function of art today, in terms of providing the new elites of globalization with legitimacy. The second workshop day is dedicated to this assertion and the ways in which we, too, are “entangled” in these contexts of power.